Why Patrick Mahomes spotlighted this incomplete pass as a good play. (He’s right.)
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mahomes called a batted third-down pass a good play, praising decision-making.
- Chiefs broke three-game skid with 37-20 win but still lack opening touchdowns.
- Red-zone batted pass forced a field goal, highlighting execution gap on early drives.
Three weeks into the offensive agitation, or whatever we’re calling the Chiefs’ worst three-game stretch to open a season in the Patrick Mahomes Era, tight end Travis Kelce stood in front of his locker and attempted to simplify it all by pointing to one bug in the operation.
If only they could start the game faster, he presumed, the whole operation would run a little more smoothly.
Two days later, the Chiefs put aside the agitation and put up their best offensive outing in two years (and four days) for a 37-20 win against the Ravens.
But if we can nitpick for a moment: It wasn’t because they opened the game faster.
The final score might’ve been the first of its kind in two-plus years, but the start was more of the same. The Chiefs, in fact, remain without an opening-drive touchdown this season as they head to Jacksonville for “Monday Night Football.”
But, man, the opportunity was there last Sunday. On their first possession, Mahomes stood in the pocket with the Chiefs in the red zone, spotted receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster open down the middle and pulled the trigger on a third-down pass. Alas, it was batted down at the line, and the Chiefs would settle for a field goal.
Frustrating, right?
Well, not exactly.
Mahomes picked out that play as an example of something I had asked him about this week.
Something positive.
A young offensive line protected him.
Before a key injury and a key suspension and an inept running game, the offensive line was supposed to be the story of the Chiefs’ season, with rookie Josh Simmons as the blindside protection and second-year Kingsley Suamataia one spot over at guard.
Well, it still is the story of this season.
Or at least the best indicator of its success.
It was an uneven start for the five up front, but by all accounts — Mahomes, head coach Andy Reid, offensive lineman Trey Smith and simply our own eyes — the offensive line responded with its best game of the year Sunday against Baltimore.
The result? Mahomes threw for four touchdowns for the first time in nearly two years. While those four found four different receivers, they did feature a commonality: They came from clean pockets.
Speedy receiver Xavier Worthy returned to the field against Baltimore. The Ravens were beat up defensively. But the protection up front is still the most important tell of this quarterback’s day.
These splits are probably to be expected, but when Mahomes operates from a clean pocket this season, he has a 106.9 passer rating, per PFF. When he’s pressured, that falls to 61.9.
It’s a drastic separation, and it’s why it matters that the protection held up in a game the Chiefs played as an underdog at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
But there’s something that matters more, and it showed up on that incomplete pass that Mahomes couldn’t help but mention.
He expected the protection to hold up.
See, there’s always been more to the Patrick Mahomes equation than whether or not he is pressured on a single play. It’s whether he believes he’s going to be pressured on a play.
That’s why he brought up the incomplete pass. On that play, he first looked to Worthy to his left and then to Travis Kelce over the middle. Neither were open. In games earlier this very season, he’s used that as his internal cue to take off — to look for a running lane.
On that play, though, he looked instead to Smith-Schuster, his third progression. It was there.
“That’s the third progression, and you see the pocket — it’s clean,” Mahomes said.
You see something else about the pocket, too: Mahomes is still locked in it.
And that’s not just about a single game’s performance. It’s the larger story — and the far more important one, because it has staying power.
“I think (seeing) the weeks prior has been something that’s been important to me,” Mahomes said. “Seeing that I can sit in these pockets and make these throws and get to my third progression (or) fourth progression.
“... Having that and having that confidence in them, it’s pushing me to be better.”
It sounds like a good narrative.
It’s supported by the numbers.
Mahomes has scrambled just five times over the past two weeks after scrambling 13 times in the initial two. That’s not solely on the offensive line. Some of that is on him, dependent on his faith in the offensive line.
Against the Eagles in Week 2, for example, Mahomes was pressured more than enough, but he scrambled five times from a clean pocket, or 22.7% of them, per PFF data.
Last week against the Ravens, he scrambled from just 5.9% of clean pockets.
It’s better offensive line play.
And it’s a better reaction to offensive line play.
I’ll offer one final proof of its relevance. When Mahomes targets his first progression, his passer rating this season is 87.1, per FTN’s tracking, and I’ll note that’s not always the easiest thing to track accurately when you don’t have access to the playbook.
But when he’s able to look to his second, third or even fourth progression — when the offensive line and his internal clock allow him to do so — his passer rating jumps to 105.3, which ranks fourth in the NFL.
It’s a good thing to have options.
It’s an even better thing to believe in them.